Gumboot Dancing adapted by Mary Goetze 

Gumboot dancing is recognized as quintessentially South African.  Gumboots are another name for rubber boots that reach nearly to the knee, which have bottle caps strung on the side to add a percussive effect. The dance consists of stamping, clapping and slapping the boots in rhythmic patterns.  As joyful as it seems, its origins as a response by mineworkers to their racial oppression.  The emergence of gumboot dancing is closely tied to South Africa’s history.

Historical Context

For most of the 20th century, the South African government was controlled by the Afrikaans people who adopted apartheid, meaning “living apart.”  This called for segregated living along racial and ethnic lines.  Blacks were relegated to 13% of the land, mostly in rural areas, called “homelands” and had to carry passes when they left their assigned homeland.  The men were called into service in the gold mines, separating them from their families who remained in the homelands.  They were required to live in townships, which were 20 kilometers outside urban areas.  A township outside Johannesburg called Soweto (short for South  West Township) is the largest township, and was a center of resistance during the movement against apartheid. 

Music and dance played important roles during the Black’s struggle for freedom, which was won in 1994.  Apartheid ended with the democratic elections when Nelson Mandela became the first president. Music that flourished in this period, such as freedom songs and gumboot dancing, are still performed today.  

Gumboot dancing was born in the gold mines of South Africa, which opened in the 1880s. It was a way to survive the isolation workers felt under the weight of the migrant labor system and the oppressive pass laws. Working in the mines was long, hard, repetitive toil. Talking was forbidden. White foremen beat and kicked black workers. Hundreds of workers were (and continue to be) killed every year in accidents.  

The floors of the mines often flooded due to poor or non-existent drainage. Hours of standing in the fetid water caused skin problems and ulcers and resulted in lost time. The white bosses, rather than spend the money needed to properly drain the shafts, issued rubber gumboots to the workers. The `miners' uniform' consisted of heavy black boots to protect the feet, jeans or overalls, bare chests (temperatures underground can reach above 120° F), and bandannas to absorb eye-stinging sweat and hard hats.  

In the dank, dark shafts, workers learned to send messages to each other by slapping on their boots. Back on the surface and in their overcrowded living quarters, the bosses refused to allow the workers to wear their traditional dress while they were not working. The bosses made all workers of the same ethnic or tribal background live together, in order to perpetuate divisions between different groups of African workers.  

Faced with this repressive regime, workers adapted traditional dances and rhythms to the only instruments available -- their boots and bodies. The songs that were sung to go with the frenetic movements dealt with working-class life -- drinking, love, family, low wages and mean bosses.  

Some “enlightened” employers eventually allowed the best dancers to form troupes to represent the company, to entertain visitors and for PR. It was not unusual for these performers' songs to openly mock their bosses and criticize wages and conditions, while the bosses were blissfully ignorant of the content, sung in Xhosa, Sotho or Zulu.  

Dance historian Jane Osborne has explained that gumboot dancing developed from traditional African roots to become part of urban South African working-class culture, and a southern African art form with universal popular appeal.  

(adapted from http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/1998/343/343p22.htm) 

Muziwandile Hadebe leads a gumboot dance group here at IU.   Rehearsals are open if you are interested in joining.  You can contact him at mmhadebe [AT] indiana.edu. He is a native of South Africa and is a doctoral student here at IU.